Season Two Finale Written Scene
by x.Vivace
Summary: Claire rolled her eyes, and if he had been anyone else he knew she would have given up by now. /Written-out version of the scene where Claire and Charlie kiss in season two. Extremely short./


**A/N: This scene..It made me cry and laugh and cover my eyes and stare and giggle and oh my gosh. I watched it over and over and I came out smiling every single time. **

**This is my OTP. **

**Disclaimer: Lost isn't mine. If I could write like this..I would. I would amaze you guys with weirdo plotlines and freak you out with sudden dead bodies all over the place. And throw in some dynamite and a nutty French chick for good measure. **

**..**

Charlie couldn't tell whether it was his jaw cracking or the fire eating away at the day's stockpile. Either way, when he pulled his finger away from the curve of his ear a sticky, lumpy coat of half-dried blood shone dully on his callous.

"What happened out there, Charlie?"

He sucked a clump of red off his fingertip and pretended to be preoccupied by a dirt stain on his knuckle.

"You want to hear the part about me nearly being killed by the flaming fireball, or the flying fork?" He grinned and met Claire's eyes for a lick of a second, then turned back to the dirt on his finger. Or was it blood? It was a rusty brown color, whatever it was.

"I want you to be serious." Claire looked away and smiled, the way she always did when she wanted to pretend he wasn't the least bit entertaining.

He granted her wish and straightened his face. But lied. "Nothing happened." It was just a tease, but still a lie. Half of him wished she would believe it.

"_Something_ happened. I mean..that noise and the sky turned that weird violet color." Her eyebrows knit in confusion, worry—the way they did when she was worked up about Aaron.

"Really?" His voice raised an octave, and the mock question ended with a stained-tooth smile, blue eyes flashing with humor, stubbly chin tilted downward.

Claire rolled her eyes, and if he had been anyone else he knew she would have given up by now. Charlie was just joking, though. Flirting with the cute Aussie girl with the bastard baby and the eyes like someone sucked water out of the clear shores of their island and stuffed the pigment straight into her starry, smiling face.

They laughed for a moment, but soon Claire's eyes caught the nasty sight that was his forearm. It had stopped bleeding, for the most part, but the red blood and the brown-tawny dirt and the black ash made it look much worse than it actually was. She frowned at the too-deep cut, but there was nothing she could do to stop the pain with Jack off saving the world and they both knew it.

She examined the cuts and whimpered for him, wishing for not nearly the first time that he would stay out of the action, just once, but when she looked up from his bruised and dirty arm, Charlie was looking at her. Not the source of a majority of his own pain, but her. She looked him in the eye and smiled, and _God_ it had been so long since they'd shared such a moment. Too long, and the aching loneliness caused by the forsaken statue and its hidden fruits was all the motivation Claire needed to lift her hand up, up and to his bangs. Sweat and dirt and blood and almost three months of no shampoo had the already thin, dead tendrils (a mix of heroin and one too many home bleaching kits had done the deed) separated and slicked to his forehead.

She ruffled a clump by his ear. The sound was muffled by the affects of the dynamite, but the sensational tingles that raced to his abdomen certainly were not.

He felt it before it happened—the kiss. Their eyes darted shyly, provocatively, toward one another's chapped, dry lips and then suddenly the taste of his own blood was dulled by a sweet, cosmetic thrill and it was all he could do not to ravage the girl right there—rip off her clothing and claim her as his own.

Seemingly reading his mind—and dear lord he hoped she hadn't been—she smiled shyly, cutely, and looked down at their now-entwined hands.

They sat with the baby and Charlie found something in that moment. Something that had been just out of his reach since the day he was born. Something that had hidden and run from him during his entire childhood, like a sick game of hide and go seek that he wasn't up for. Something he'd chased away during his adulthood, with wild sex parties and drugs and band tours that, in the end, left him literally high and dry. Something that he'd never felt before back in England, not once.

Home. He was home.

**..**

**A/N: Yeah, I know. A total rip-off of the season two finale, but oh my gosh I could not resist. This pairing is gorgeous, and I love delving into the minds of TV show characters, especially with scenes like this where I can be angst-y. **

**Thanks for reading my character study-type thing. :3**


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